The Ukrainian Weekly 1981
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СВ ОБОДА J^SvOBODOBODA І І УКРАЇНСЬКИЙ щорічник ^Шт^Р А І N І А Н D А І І У ІШ Щ гаїшаІ І п PUBLISHED BY THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION INC.. A WeeFRATERNAL NON-PROFIT ASSOCIATIOkN Ї m о w vol. LXXXVIII No. 10 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, MARCH 8, i98i 25 cents r Elmira Heights to unveil Oksana Meshko sentenced monument to Taras Shevchenko NEW YORK - Oksana Meshko. 76- year-old acting chairman of the Kiev- JERSEY C!TY, N.J. - Five repre– based Ukrainian Helsinki Group, was sentatives of the Ukrainian community sentenced to six months' imprisonment in Elmira Heights, N.Y. - all members and five years' exile by a Soviet court in of UNA Branch 271 - visited the UNA Kiev, Ukraine, on charges of "anti- main office and the Svoboda Press on Soviet agitation and propaganda." February 20 to discuss that commu– nity's plans to install a monument to The trial of the Helsinki monitor was Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in a held January 5-6. At the conclusion of special memorial park. The monument the trial Ms. Meshko was immediately is scheduled to be unveiled on June 22 taken to an unknown location for exile. and 23. Ms. Meshko turned 76on January 30. The design and lay-out of the 12-foot She was a student at Dnipropetrovske granite monument is being drawn up by U nivetsity until she was expelled duriiig well-known Ukrainian sculptor Mycha– the Stalinist repressions. From 1947 to jlo Czereszniowsky, also at the meeting, 1956 she was a prisoner in Soviet who decided to use a bas-relief of the concentration camps. After her release young bard created by the late Anton she was "rehabilitated." -Pavlos to grace the face of the rectan– gular monolith. Ms. Meshko is the widow of Fedir Mr. Czereszniowsky, who has al– Serhiyenko, who died of tuberculosis. ready. prepared a model of the monu– Hep older son Yevhen died tragically in ment and is overseeing the bronze his teen years during the period of casting of the Pavlos work from a wax evacuation. relief, said that he chose the work as a Her younger son Oleksander was first Oksana Meshko tribute to the largely unheralded sculp– imprisoned by Soviet authorities in Group.tp Promote the implementation tor who died in 1954. 1966. in 1972 he was arrested and of the Helsinki Accords. After the The original cast has been in the sentenced to seven years' imprisonment arrests of Mykola Rudenko and Oles Ukrainian National Home in New York and three years' exile for anti-Soviet Berdnyk, she became the acting chair- since artist Jacques Hnizdovsky bought agitation and propaganda (Article 62 of man of the Helsinki group. ' it for a mere S50. it was donated to the the Crirninal Code of the Ukrainian As a result of her membership in the project by the national home. SSR), and -he is now-nrexile in"the rights group, she was continually haras– Khabarovsk region. Ms. Meshko is When the town announced plans last sed by Soviet authorities and subjected known for her appeals of Oleksander's year to build a park across from St. to searches of her apartment and inter- behalf. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, rogations. the parish, ,under former pastor Step– in 1976 Ms. Meshko became a found– According to the U.S. Commission han Chorako, organized a drive to ing member of the Ukrainian Public (Continued on page 3) petition the city to dedicate the park to Shevchenko. The project got a boost from former Mayor Charles Bower, Model of the Shevchenko monument to Soviets confine Club Maria member who wrote the village board supporting be unveiled in Elmira Heights, N.Y. the plan. ORANGE. Calif. - Recent reports Goricheva and Natalia Malakhovskaia, Meeting on May 1, 1980, the village of Shevchenko, but reserved the right to from Switzerland indicate that Soviet a philologist - were expelled from the board of trustees unanimously gave the add other suitable personages to the roll authorities have ordered Natalia Save– Soviet Union last July 20, one day after Ukrainian community the okay to build of honorees. iieva, a 23-year-old member of ' Club the last issue of the magazine was the monument, but hedged at naming it The five representatives, Walter Maria, a feminist^ religious group, released. exclusively after the poet. The board did Korchynsky, the Rev. Peter Lisowsky, confined in psychiatric clinic in Gat- agree to call it a memorial park in honor (Continued on page 3) china near Leningrad, according to At the time, they attributed their Keston News. expulsion to the government crack- Another member of the group, Ga– down before last summer's Olympic Soviets protest 'detainment' of Polovchaks lina Grigorieva, is reported to be under Games in Moscow. Upon her release, KGB surveillence, and her home has Ms. Malakhovskaia characterized So– MOSCOW - Soviet officials here child, a younger son, said he is willing to been searched. The 32-year-old psycho– viet women as "slaves of the slaves." called in U.S. diplomats to protest what return to the Soviet Union with his logist and mother of two has contri– Keston News reported that Club they called the "forcible detainment in parents. buted to the journal, Maria, and to the Maria has come under increased go– the United States" of the Polovchak Leningrad Religious Samizdat Jour– The case of 13-year-old Walter, vernment pressure for its religious and family, according to the Associated nai 37. feminist activities. Press. which has become a cause celebre in the Club Maria, which was founded on Ukrainian community, is still bogged The Polovchaks, who emigrated principles of the Russian Orthodox down in the courts. On August 4, a from Ukraine early in 1980 but have Church, is expressly concerned with the federal judge remanded Walter to state since decided to leave the United States, situation of women and children in 1NS1DE: custody, ruling that, given the fact that are currently entangled in a complex Soviet society. The group also helped he ran away from his parents because he Ш State Department report on legal battle to retain custody of Sheir publish the underground magazine. would be forced to return against his human rights, part 11 - page 2. teenage son, Walter, who has expressed The Woman and Russia, which carried will, he was in need of state supervision. his desire– to remain in the United a statement urging Soviet women to Ш On being Ukrainian by Marta States. The Soviet news agency TASS re- persuade their husbands and sons to go Korduba — page 5. Walter's older sister Natalia, 17, has ported that the parents have not left the to prison rather than fight in Afghani– been permitted to remain with relatives United States "because they have no stan. U Tribute to Taras Shevchenko - in Chicago because she entered the wish to leave theirchildren in the United Three editors of the magazine - pages 6-7. country on a separate visa. A third States," the AP reported, Tatiana Mamonova. a poet, Tatiana THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, MARCH 8,1981 No. 10 Each year the Department ot State Health Care submits a report on human rights Free universal health care is guaran– practices throughout the world to the U.S. State Department reports on teed by the Soviet Constitution, in Congress in compliance with the Foreign addition, provision for the continuation Assistance Act of 1961. of citizens' income during periods of The 1980 report covers 153 countries - human rights in the USSR illness is quite liberal. Medical stan– recipients of U.S. economic or security dards and the availability of personnel assistance and United Nations member- one of its most effective means of social items in the government's overall eco– and facilities have improved substan– states. control. nomic plans. tially under Soviet rule. As of 1977 there Since its recovery by the early 1950s were 34.5 physicians and 120.8 hospital Below is the State Department's report on Nevertheless, housing shortages and the Soviet Union, which we reprint for the from the damage of world war, the beds per 10,000 people. overcrowding continue to exist in the There is, however, considerable information of our readers. centralized Soviet economy has expe– major cities accessible to foreign ob– rienced impressive overall growth, in disparity in the regional distribution of servers. This is due to the long relative medical facilities. Low pay for doctors Part 11 the last 15 years, however, the rate of neglect of housing during the Stalin and other medical personnel remains a growth has been decelerating noticeably period, the late start by Khrushchev in 2. Government policies relating to the — from 4 to 5 percent per year average problem. Shortages of medicines and fulfillment of such vital needs as food, programs to meet the need and the during the 1960s to less than 3 percent continued substantial migration from vaccines persist, and medical equipment shelter, heath care and education in the late 1970's. The difficulties are is generally not up to Western stan– The Soviet state places considerable rural to urban areas which increases the caused by declining rate of growth of populations of already crowded cities. dards. The general level of medical care emphasis on economic and social rights. the labor force, low labor productivity, available to the population is lower than While the population as a whole is Planned housing construction for the increasing cost of investments, ineffi– entire 10th five-year plan (1976-80) is that available in the insustrialized normally able to obtain essential food, cient use of raw materials, difficulties in countries and lower than the standard clothing, shelter, education and medical 545 to 550 million square meters, or applying new technology and, parti– enough for up to 60 million persons by of care enjoyed by the elite.